Written on August 23, 2008 – 4:52 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
After spending only three days of my life in Germany’s capital, I’m already in love with this city. I’ve been exploring the streets, shops, museums, and restaurants, but most of all, I’m trying to get in touch with the locals here. Berlin is famous for its underground scene and there’s only one way to get there, via the people. David Noël - marketing manager of Hobnox (review here) - organized a Music 2.0 dinner last night and guess what, your blogger was so fortunate to be invited. After some good chats - some of which lasted till 4am - with the guys from Hobnox, Soundcloud (review here), and The Hype Machine, I realized Berlin is one rocking start-up city. Here are four reasons why. “Only four?”, you might ask. Yeah, just four, because that’s all you need to realize this is the place where a digital nomad should stay for a while.
1. Cheap office space
For some reason, the rents in Berlin are ridiculously low (maybe because it’s so spacious?). I’ve met some guys who only paid 250 euros per month for a huge office space with a great view and all. Even in Mitte, hearth of the city, rents aren’t that high.
2. Find inspiration on the streets
Just like New York, this city really oozes energy. Mostly because of all the weird and funky people walking around. So whenever you have something that comes close to a temporary burn-out, just hit the streets and suck up the creativity. Read these tweets by Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin (who is here for a month) to see what I mean:
3. International allure
This probably not the first article you’ve read that describes how awesome Berlin is. The great reputation of the formerly divided city attracts thousands of creative people from all over the world. Fellas like Hype Machine guys just like to hang out here because the atmosphere is great. That gives the city - and thus your start-up - international allure. Moreover, it offers you plenty of opportunities to meet other Web-minded people who visit your city. Like the TechCrunch UK meet-up last May. No wonder the whole Web 2.0 Expo circus is gonna do its act here.
Party at SoundCloud’s Henrik Berggren’s
4. Vibrant web community
I’ve only been here for a few days, but already met a lot of interesting Internet entrepreneurs and bloggers. While we were having dinner, everyone called friends and business partners to come down to the restaurant as well. But the best thing was yet to come. Henrik Berggren from Soundcloud invited us to a smashing party at his home. Next to being an entrepreneur, this Swedish guy is also a DJ. He sure knows how to throw a party with a mini casino, bar, dance floor and a balcony filled with uber cool people.
That’s all there is to it. If you’re up for some creative and fun times, while working on your start-up, Berlin is the place to go to. Who can lend me a room for a month or three?
I hope you like that post!
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Written on July 14, 2008 – 3:46 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Sometimes I dream of going to my favorite club, grab my mobile, and check who of my friends are there as well - so I won’t miss them in the dancing crowd. If I lived in Germany, this dream would be somewhere close to reality. German folks can look up their friends on aki-aki, a social network that uses bluetooth to see whose around within a distance of 20 meters. Of course I could join the English version, but there aren’t many Dutch people on the site yet. I think I’ll have to wait for such a feature on Hyves.
Anyway, enough about me. Let’s go back to aki-aki. After installing a mobile app and switching your bluetooth on, aki-aki tracks wherever you’ve been and who you’ve met. You can look up this info at the web site to see what you’ve been up to recently. Imagine you’ve ran into someone sixty times, it might be an interesting idea to meet up.
A month ago we reported they were about to receive more capital. Well, that worked out fine, as Aki-Aki has announced (translated) that they’ve received a small investment from venture capitalist Creathor Venture. The size is undisclosed. Partly due to this investment and a talented team, a diploma project at the Berlin University of Arts has grown to a real business with 16 employees.
The numbers of GameDuell are pretty impressive: the community has 10 million registered members who together play 200,000 games on a daily basis. Founders Boris Wasmuth, Kai Bolik, and Michael Kalkowski (see picture) claim to have more than 200 media partners - which rates them as the no. 3 online advertiser in Germany. The workforce of 80 employees is supposed to double before the end of this year.
So why is GameDuell so popular? Simple: users play against each other and have the chance to win serious cash prizes. The games are skill-focused - think Darts, Pool, Sudoku, Solitaire, and Mahjong -, so some governments don’t consider the games as gambling. For most people from countries where online gambling is forbidden, GameDuell offers a good alternative - since they can still win prizes. GameDuell offers localized site for visitors from US, UK, Spain, France, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Written on June 28, 2008 – 11:32 am Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
While typing this article, I’m listening to an intimate concert José Gonzalez gave in Berlin. It’s published on Sly-Fi, the music channel of Berlin-based Hobnox, that is temporarily functioning as the new MTV for me. Especially as they’ve interviewed the musician as well. Exactly the kind of experience marketing manager David Noel was hoping for: “MTV stopped producing music focused shows that also feature upcoming bands, we think that there is a gap to close.” So the team from Hobnox wants to satisfy all the music hipsters who are fed up with the musical atrocities of Rihanna and Enrique Iglesias.
Noel: “Right now, we produce editorial content for three channels in the broad areas music, film and culture”. The next step though, is more interesting. Hobnox will integrate content from talented users into existing shows or create new shows around them. “The existing formats are always made in a way that our users can easily make these shows themselves. Like the iNterview format. Just grab a laptop with a webcam and answer the questions your fans or friends send you.” (Here’s the latest episode with The Ting Tings)
The player does have some problems (in Firefox) though, as I can’t manage to get the embed code or a direct link. But if Noel and his team fix this, I think I can call Hobnox once again one the coolest start-ups of this year. These new plans make it even better. Seesmic has already proved that using your users’ content for shows can turn out to be really good move, as the funny g-spot episode showed. If Hobnox does the same, but with media talent, this German site could soon become one of my favorite channels.
Written on June 23, 2008 – 4:02 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
TechCrunch broke the news today: Nokia has acquired Berlin-based Plazes for an undisclosed amount. The service - founded by Felix Petersen - allows its users to track the places, activities and people in their lives. Sounds like Twitter and Jaiku right? But it isn’t completely the same, as the location is Plazes core feature. You don’t have to mention you’re in Berlin, it shows up in a Google map. Updates can be send by SMS or a mobile app (soon also on the iPhone).
Felix Petersen
There’s one other important difference though, while Twitter is U.S.-based and Finnish Jaiku was sucked up by Google, Plazes however, will remain European. Their first financial backing came from European private equity firm Doughty Hanson, which invested €2.7 million. The second round of funding DOES have an American touch to it, as Plazes received €1 million in total from Marc Andreessen (US), Esther Dyson (US), and Martin Varsavsky (Argentina). But that’s all there is. Plazes will stay in Berlin and remain member of the European tech family. And that is good for Europe. Just so you know, Loic Le Meur feels the same about it.
So what will happen next? Most likely, Plazes will become a standard Nokia app - installed on all its phones. Here’s what Felix himself (or his ghost blogger) writes:
The team is very excited to be able to further develop the Plazes service that is online today together with Nokia. If all goes well, in the near future plazes will be made available to millions of Nokia customers both online and on millions of mobile devices.
I hope geo localization is ready for its big break-through.
Wanna know how the Plazes office and Felix’ home looks like? Check the MTV Cribs-like video we shot in January.
When you’re talking about German start-ups, you’re talking about Berlin. The city is booming. There are cheap offices and a bunch of angel investors of which one might help you to get that so-wanted lead investment. I learned this optimistic lesson at the TechCrunch UK/Twidox meetup yesterday. Mike Butcher had left London to find out how it feels to say ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ and to meet 15 startups - all eager to promote their business. These are my personal highlights:
Undersigned and Chris from Hiogi
Hiogi - the community answers your questions
Hiogi is a mobile search service that is based on a knowledge community. You can ask anything via Twitter, SMS or email and receive an answer on your mobile. I’ve tried it and ask for the best pizza place near Senerfelderplatz. Within 10 minutes I had my answer and I must admit, it was a very good pizza. Hiogi has just released an open API which gives you acces to the latest questions and answers that were posted. Not surprisingly, these guys have received funding this year and won a couple of prices.
Hobnox - platform for professionals from the creative industry
Hobnox is an online music and video platform where users can watch, connect, collaborate and create. The Next Web has already written about this in May 2008. They are now busy with the community feature of their product where you can download and upload the music to the site and share it with friends.
Jimdo - a personal website for everyone
Jimdo is an online website builder. You can create your own JimdoFree-Page and add several modules to it - like a blog, guest book, photo gallery, etc. The team is now working on adding social modules like Open Social widgets. Jimdo is based in Hamburg and received the first round funding earlier this year. By the way, one of their most important competitors is Webnode, who presented on The Next Web conference. (more…)
Written on August 23, 2008 – 4:52 pm
David Noël - marketing manager of Hobnox (review here) - organized a Music 2.0 dinner last night and guess what, your blogger was so fortunate to be invited. After some good chats - some of which lasted till 4am - with the guys from Hobnox, Soundcloud (review here), and The Hype Machine, I realized Berlin is one rocking start-up city. Here are four reasons why. “Only four?”, you might ask. Yeah, just four, because that’s all you need to realize this is the place where a digital nomad should stay for a while. 
The numbers of GameDuell are pretty impressive: the community has 10 million registered members who together play 200,000 games on a daily basis. Founders Boris Wasmuth, Kai Bolik, and Michael Kalkowski (see picture) claim to have more than 200 media partners - which rates them as the no. 3 online advertiser in Germany. The workforce of 80 employees is supposed to double before the end of this year.
Written on June 12, 2008 – 3:58 pm
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